Be silly, be honest, be kind – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Adventure is a dirty word.

I feel like more and more lately, our culture is becoming obsessed with how other people live their lives. Of course this has increased due to the effects of social media which I’m not really here to talk specifically about, plenty of other great writers have done so. More what I’m interested in and what I find to be noticing within myself, is our culture or generation’s obsession with living an awesome life. I would say for some, if not all, an awesome life is either defined by having lots of trendy pals or by living an adventurous life.

Sayings like ‘doing it for the gram’ are shaping how we spend our weekends and our payslips as we seek to have a life that screams ‘adventure’. It seems like more and more ‘living an adventurous life’ is characterised by living a full life or one that involves a lot of change and spontaneity. A lot of travel. A lot of exciting new opportunities.

Which is awesome. I actually love most of those things. I only really just started traveling and I’m dying to do it again. I’m craving adventure and it got me thinking and researching new destinations and considering things that I normally never would. Which is awesome. There’s nothing wrong with that life. Except for when you don’t have it, when you can’t afford it, when you’re in the middle of a degree, when you’re pregnant, when you’ve got a mortgage.

It’s incredibly easy to look on at someone else’s life that looks way more adventurous than yours and feel frustrated with your pretty average life. You might be in the same job that you’ve been in for the last 5 years or have lived in the same city all your life and you wish you could just pick up and go and live the nomadic life. The adventurous life looks sexy. It looks fun and wild and spontaneous and somehow over time – we’ve glorified that type of lifestyle at the detriment to all the others. Staying, become something sucky. Staying is boring. Staying in your marriage – admirable but dull. Staying in your job – secure but stale. Staying in your home city – consistent but convenient. Being a stay at home mum – committed but .. boring. Adventure has come to be associated with movement and staying stationery has become apathetic.

At least that how you’ve been made to feel, either by society or social media or by standards we actually set for ourselves.

Ugh. Since when did consistency go out of style? I’d love to try and bring consextency back (JT reference for those who thought that was a typo). We need to get better at assessing our life not on the standards of society but on what God has set up specifically for us.

Sometimes, staying is the biggest adventure. Running away from our problems is easy but staying is hard. Staying is brave.

Staying in your marriage when it gets hard and people are telling you to give up. Your adventure might be at home teaching your child to read, even if you’re going stir crazy. Staying in your job to bring stability to your relationships or to pay off that debt. Staying in prayer even when that answer to prayer isn’t coming and your faith is wavering. Staying in your home city to help look after your parents as their health declines.

I’m not saying that living a life that is filled with change and last minute plans and moves overseas and opportunity is wrong. It’s not. In fact, if God is calling you right now to make a move, to accept a new job or opportunity or to throw caution to the wind then you really need to do that. Don’t stay when God is asking you to go, that’s not consistency it’s just disobedience. You can’t use consistency as your crutch. In the same way, we must

Instead of asking yourself – does my life look/feel/sound adventurous to others?Instead ask yourself – am I living the adventure God has called me to?Is my adventure staying? Is He calling you to go?

Then go do it or keep doing it. I’ll celebrate it whether it looks like champagne and boarding passes or your baby napping in your arms or whether I don’t even see it on instagram because you’re too busy living.

Go and live a big adventure life – the one He called and continues to call you to.